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Tikos Krymmonas
}}A Grozen citizen born after the nation rebuilt itself on Savaor's back, Tikos Krymmonas often finds herself at odds with her own altruism and empathy. With both the tendency to accept too much responsibility and the desire to make sure no one gets hurt, she finds herself in leadership positions a bit against her will and resents when she doesn't have control over a situation. However, she doesn't want to burden others with her problems, particularly due to feelings of inferiority causing her to think everyone has their lives together better than she does. As a result, Tikos is both skilled at smoothing over situations... and acting as though there is no situation to begin with. Appearance :"I look ''almost dateable, remember?"'' Unnaturally pale-looking with a few odd black splotches on seemingly random parts of her body, Tikos' skin never seems to tan or burn no matter how long she's out in the sun. Despite this, it's very dry as well, constantly flaking off and also bearing several odd bumps of unknown origins. She has sawed-off horns beneath her hair, and since discovering them as a mark of being a tiefling, she takes care to keep them out of sight as best she can. Tikos often wears gloves and long (but also light and flowing) clothes to keep herself from scratching at her skin, which is a nervous habit that intensifies particularly when she's stressed. She favors muted colors in her clothes, preferring not to make herself stand out more than she already does. Tikos' black hair is usually tied back with a red ribbon (a birthday gift from her father) to keep it off her neck and sort of out of her face, though she's particular about hiding the horn nubs near her scalp. She has rather sharp, angular facial features, and she often looks more irritated than she means to, particularly due to how she emotes to things she was just thinking about. When she's thinking especially hard about something, she'll zone out and may end up accidentally glaring at someone when in reality, it was directed at something only in her thoughts. She has pointed ears and teeth that seem just a little too sharp to be human-typical, yet another indication of her tiefling heritage. In conjunction with her height, this might make it appear that she has orcish ancestry somewhere in her bloodline, an excuse she quickly turns to when anyone comments on her appearance. Although her eyes aren't quite exactly red and are closer to amber in hue, in certain lighting, Tikos has noticed they seem more red than anything else. It's difficult to tell if her eyes are actually changing color to a more tiefling-typical color or if it's just her imagination. Either way, she's taken to wearing glasses, particularly in public, to try to make her strange eyes a little less obvious. Since an encounter with Morakyv on Som80, Tikos' skin, particularly on her arms, has maintained some burnt-looking patches that are more sensitive to the touch than the rest of her body. Due to her skin-picking habit, these areas on her body are more scratched than unburnt skin. Personality :"I'm all outta nice. Spent it on the Flockborn. Try next year." Tikos' sense of humor is sarcastic and sometimes pokes fun at others, though she's prone to self-deprecating comments more often, particularly when stressed or frustrated. Normally, she doesn't mean offense and is just typically caustic like many Grozens, but her layer of sarcasm adorning complaints may make it hard to tell if she's just joking around or if she's actually serious. When she feels strongly about something, she'll toss aside the sarcasm for the most part and speak more directly, but often in a very wordy manner to make sure her exact point is conveyed and so she can shut down opposing arguments before they even start. She relies on logic and analysis to find the truth, believing that it's impossible to really learn or know anything without being willing to doubt it. When stressed, Tikos might rant or become overwhelmingly sarcastic, shedding pretenses of politeness in most cases and also letting slip her gruffer, Grozen accent. Her temper might also spring forth, particularly if people are trying to wrest control over a situation from or otherwise go contrary to what she's trying to do. However, when the stress becomes too much, she instead shuts down, not speaking at all or only in short, curt responses. She also becomes significantly more passive and seems to just seek the nearest way out of the situation, and her nervous tics, particularly picking at her skin, manifest much more strongly. In the worst of situations, suicidal thoughts creep into her head and are magnified further by martyr tendencies, an aspect of herself that she hides perhaps even more fiercely than her tiefling heritage. Tikos dislikes burdening others with her problems, and this, compounded with her rollercoaster self-esteem and fixation on making sure people perceive her a particular way, can result in breakdowns where everything comes flooding out all at once. Despite being educated in rhetoric and logic and regularly applying it even in normal conversation, Tikos finds herself governed by her emotions and gut instincts with regularity, particularly in her desire for peaceful resolutions. Even in life-or-death situations, Tikos would rather use diplomacy to convince her enemies to stop fighting, and she would be hard-pressed to leave someone behind if there was even a chance at saving them. On the surface, she may justify this behavior with how it's always good to have someone owe you a favor or to build up a network of allies, but the truth of the matter is, she just doesn't want anyone to die -- an aspect of her own character she was unaware of until several near-brushes with death and witnessing quite a few deaths during Descents. Like almost everyone else raised in Grozennach, Tikos tends to have a disparaging or at best critical view of governments. Even foreign ones get on her nerves with their various rules and regulations that seem archaic at best and hostile at worst, though she's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt more than she will with Grozennach's government. This view is less due to caring about politics and more seeing the harm that various governments do when their power is not kept in check or once they stop serving the people's best interests. As a leader herself -- a position she takes on rather naturally, much to her frustration -- Tikos tries to ensure everyone's voices are heard and that they're satisfied with the direction the group is headed in. She'd balk at the notion of forcing a group into a course of action unless there was irrefutable evidence that the group's desires were destructive or wrong in some way and that this was the only way through a situation. Even then, Tikos would prefer to peacefully convince people of her views rather than force them, even if she has the power to do so. Tikos is intellectually curious and may self-describe as a scholar, though this label is somewhat inaccurate. She doesn't go into deep research very often unless she thinks she may have found a lead on the source of her odd powers, which manifested in her at a young age with no apparent source, or something else of personal investment to her. As such, Tikos has a broad surface knowledge of many subjects, but she only knows a lot about very particular and often very niche things. She's aware of this, particularly due to finding herself in the company of much more well-read, genuine scholars as of late, though that doesn't stop her desire to seem helpful from nudging her into making her knowledge of a subject known when it applies. In particular, it doesn't take much to get her to start discussing the specifics of philosophy in all its various forms, from rhetoric and argument form to morality and the nature of truth. Due to growing up altogether very isolated, both due to her own pushing people away and also just due to her own inherent oddness, Tikos tends to cling to people rather strongly, but she won't outright admit attachment except in particular circumstances. The quickest way to get Tikos to be honest about her feelings towards someone is to put her in a situation where the other person is emotionally vulnerable and needs help. She doesn't like using people or harming others, feeling guilty even for accidentally hurting someone. All in all, Tikos is definitely a people-person who feels for humanity. She enjoys being around other people in most situations, getting lonely rather easily, and it doesn't take much for her altruism to set her on the course of trying to fix other people's problems. To ignore someone's plea for help, she would have to justify it in some way -- it could be a trap, it might lead to something bad, the person might have ulterior motives, and so on. Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, she struggles to use offensively-minded spells against other people, even if the end result is altogether harmless or could be construed as benevolent, such as using Memory Lapse to make someone forget something Tikos said that caused genuine offense. In her spare time, Tikos enjoys writing, mostly philosophical or analytical essays, though she also keeps a journal and has discovered it to be rather therapeutic in most circumstances. She finds something soothing about the visible productivity of the written word, and her previous occupation as a transcriber for politicians' speeches means she is skilled at writing quickly without sacrificing legibility. Reading is also a favored pasttime for her, but on days where she can't concentrate or focus, she generally isn't able to read at all and will usually take to writing down her thoughts to get them in order. Because of the rift between her and her social group's interests, Tikos rarely discusses her personal writing and the things she legitimately enjoys reading about (as opposed to things she's reading for the sake of the group's goals), though this is something she longs for. Tikos has recently become the owner of a HAVOC that she has named Skylos. She's protective of it and also tries to treat it as an individual, especially now that a Trofast Badge has granted it true intelligence, though she somewhat anthropomorphized the HAVOC even prior to this. Background :"I still had a nice life growin' up with just my parents." Tikos was born in Yovos, a smaller, almost sleepy city in the mane of Grozennach's lion-like Carrier. She is an only child raised on various wild tales from her boastful father, Daimonas Krymmonas. Daimonas lost his leg during the excavation of Grozennach, and from a young age, Tikos often found herself trying to help him out and take care of him (not that he would have admitted he needed it). Her mother, Epikaros Krymmonas, was a little more distant and quiet, quietly correcting Daimonas' unlikely tales with a small smile. Tikos found herself more drawn to her father's carefree and humorous attitude, though she loves both her parents and tries to visit them when she can. Despite both her parents looking like ordinary humans, Tikos herself looks little like them except for perhaps similarities in facial feature and hair color. Her unnaturally sharp teeth, greyish, pale skin that never tanned, pointed ears, and amber eyes make it easy to wonder if she's even related to them at all. Tikos noticed this rather early on, internalizing various excuses for her odd appearance. They could have distant orcish ancestry somewhere, hence the pointed ears; maybe she just has a non-contagious skin disorder of some kind. Mocking jeers from others about her appearance gave her a sharp tongue, but also enough self-deprecation about her own appearance to keep others from making comments that she herself hasn't already said about herself. However, insults are enough to build up a tolerance for -- mysterious magic, on the other hand, is more tricky. When Tikos was six, unusual powers started to manifest in her. While she had no formal training in magic, she still found herself able to heal small wounds and occasionally move around objects without touching them. At first, the young Tikos found this development exciting, but she soon saw it as another thing that set her apart from the critical Grozens around her and took to practicing in secret. She didn't even tell her parents initially, though they quickly found out on their own -- at the same time Tikos' odd affinity for divine magic surfaced, a bizarre curse also seemed to settle on her. When she dropped objects, they would move away in another direction on their own, often as far as ten feet. It was as though something was moving them on its own. Intending to keep this secret from the various neighbors that already saw Tikos as an oddity, Tikos instead opted to be very careful when picking up things and never let anyone know about this apparent curse. The stronger her powers grew, the more Tikos wanted to know where they came from, but also the more she worried that the curse would somehow spread to her family. Though she didn't exactly attempt to conceal her powers from her parents, she also avoided reminding them and dodged any conversations about potentially getting involved with ARCA as best she could. The last thing she needed was to feel out of place or risk other people -- informed people, especially -- finding out there was something else "wrong" about her. Her parents seemed content to drop the issue once Tikos' aversion was made clear, and it wasn't until Tikos was thirteen that there were further discussions of what to do about these strange powers. Since her powers were more divine magic than anything else, Tikos' parents reasoned that perhaps her mother's brother in Aema, a trained bloodtender by the name of Ardurios Preotari, might be able to at least hone her amateur healing skills. Maybe among the practices of Bloodfaith, there'd be an answer to where her powers had come from. Going to somewhere like Aema would be a step in the right direction, at the very least, and there wasn't much she could do in Yovos while trying to stay out of the neighbors' critical eyes. While Tikos was initially resistant to the idea of leaving home and staying with a relative she didn't know very well, the continued harassment and bullying from a recurring group of kids her age in Yovos eventually pushed her to leaving and going to live with her "Uncle Ar". As an apprentice bloodtender, Tikos helped out Ardurios in preserving the blood of various families and keeping the whole thing organized -- a difficult task, given Ardurios' absentmindedness. His carelessness grated on Tikos the more she felt she had to "clean up" after his careless mistakes, and the drudging work wasn't getting her any closer to the answers she sought. Six years after her initial move to Aema, Tikos felt she'd had enough of the bloodtender job and left once she got a job as a transcriber for various small-time politicians' speeches and public addresses. Their emphasis on emotional arguments and fear frustrated Tikos, who felt that swaying the opinions of people ought to be based more in rational decision-making and mutual benefit. This spurred an interest in learning formal logic and rhetoric, and she saved up her money for such an education, eventually meeting a half-orcish man named Deslakos Panafora that offered private lessons in logic. While Deslakos did teach Tikos about discourse and rhetoric as promised, her neglectful reading of the contract she signed resulted in him practically bleeding her dry of her funds. She couldn't afford to be taken to court if she violated the contract, so she bided her time until the classes were complete and she was free from his legal grasp. However, Deslakos' underhanded business methods left a lasting impression on Tikos' wallet, as did the untimely disappearance of her uncle shortly after Tikos cut ties with Deslakos. Despite regularly ranting about how new nations on the Carriers just threw things off and upset the balance they'd all just gotten used to, Ardurios abruptly decided to accompany rescue teams to Tiichia, and he never returned. Nobody seemed quite certain what happened to him. The most common account that Tikos and her family heard was that Ardurios had bolted off the platform as soon as it landed in Tiichia and run off into the Deadlands, never to return. This left Tikos alone in Aema, and her search for the source of the powers and curse she had took a backseat to adjusting to having to live entirely off her own income. As the months went on, Tikos found it harder and harder to support herself. Even with some help from her parents, who seemed to understand the unspoken sentiment of not wanting to lose Ardurios' home after living there for so long, Tikos felt she was just barely squeaking by in paying the bills and buying enough food for herself. At the end of her rope, Tikos resolved to go to the surface world below during the next Descent in hopes of finding some way of getting the money she needed. Useful supplies, something rare to sell, a magical artifact that ARCA would pay money for -- anything. Maybe if she got lucky enough, she'd even find something that was somehow connected to the source of her powers... Campaign Events :Main article: Campaign Events Hackledown Descent In Hackledown, Tikos became one of the few chosen by a mask later identified as the Voice of the World. Though ultimately most of the others who initially received the Impetus from the Voice did not stay or endeavor to uncover anything about the mask's mystery, Tikos found her life course irrevocably changed by this one day in Hackledown. In addition to being called upon by the Voice, she found Skylos, a HAVOC that eventually became her stalwart companion, and the course of Hackledown's events brought her to other like-minded individuals and gave her something that she'd lacked for many years -- a sense of belonging to something. Reprieve Back aboard the Flock, Tikos found firsthand that the "breaks" from the chaos and stress of Descents are not always so relaxing. Although they managed to make headway on unraveling some of the mysteries they had been given to solve, Tikos found adjusting to this new social group, its intricacies, and her role as its de facto leader much harder than anticipated. At times, it felt like every step of progress came with new problems to solve. Miscellany Tikos' theme is Refutation. There exists also a piano arrangement of Refutation, because I'm still crying about Tikos Krymmonas. Her birthday is Som72. Tikos has no fewer than four middle names, all derived from deceased relatives on her father's side of the family -- respectively, they are Kyriakos, Nomiki, Selena, and Agapi. Evidently, in a previous life, Tikos was the protagonist of a dating sim. You've been hit by a smooth Krymmonas. Image Gallery Tikoscommission.jpg tikosarc1.png Tikosart2.png Tikosart.png tikosisdone.png|"i swear to god if you ever look at me like that again, i'm gonna diplomacy the shit out of you and make you my best friend." tikosfil2.png tikosfil4.png Tikos.gif Category:Player Characters Category:Flock Category:Cycle Three